Seska
Seska was a Cardassian operative, genetically altered to appear Bajoran in order to infiltrate the Maquis. She was assigned to Chakotay's Maquis raider, the Val Jean, and used her relationship with him in order to steal Maquis secrets. In 2371 she, along with the rest of Chakotay's crew, was stranded in the Delta Quadrant. Her true origins remained undiscovered and she became a member of the crew of the , with a field commission of ensign, initially in the science department but later moving to engineering. If it had ever occurred, Seska would have supported a Maquis mutiny on board Voyager. She was involved with Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres, Lieutenant Joe Carey and Lieutenant Tuvok in their attempts to acquire spatial trajector technology behind Captain Janeway's back. ( ) While appearing to perform her duties normally, she was in fact attempting to negotiate the transfer of Starfleet replicator technology to the Kazon-Nistrim. She was seriously injured while trying to cover up the fact that the Kazon were trying to develop replicators from specifications she had given them. The Doctor's subsequent examination caused her true Cardassian nature to be revealed (although she initially claimed that she had suffered from Orkett's disease as a child and received an extensive transfusion from a Cardassian to survive), but she escaped aboard a Kazon raider. ( ) Among her most memorable criticism of Janeway, replying to Chakotay, when he asks her why she had assisted the Kazon: :"I did it for you. I did it for this crew. We are alone here, at the mercy of any number of hostile aliens, because of the incomprehensible decision of a Federation captain. A Federation captain who destroyed our only chance to get home. Federation rules. Federation nobility. Federation compassion? Do you understand, if this had been a Cardassian ship, we would be home now. We must begin to forge alliances. To survive, we must have powerful friends. The Kazon-Nistrim were willing to be our protectors in return for some minor technology." She immediately set about restoring her Cardassian appearance, and became the consort of First Maje Culluh, the leader of the Kazon-Nistrim sect. She provided them with technological and tactical expertise, and planned a successful attempt to steal a transporter control module from Voyager. On this occasion, however, she was outsmarted by her former Maquis commander Chakotay, who was successful in destroying the module. He was, however, captured by the Kazon and interrogated. During this time, Seska claimed that she had impregnated herself with Chakotay's DNA and was carrying his child. However, she also claimed that the child belonged to Culluh, using the baby to manipulate the two men. ( ) Disillusioned with Captain Janeway's policies, Voyager crewmember Michael Jonas contacted Seska, offering to act as a spy and later as a saboteur. Neelix discovered Jonas' actions as he was about to sabotage the ship's warp drive and weapon systems, and Jonas was killed by a plasma leak as they fought. ( ) In late 2372, Seska gave birth to the child, a boy. She immediately contacted Chakotay, claiming that Culluh had discovered that the child was not his (Apparently due to its more Human appearance) and was going to raise him as a slave. This lured Voyager into a trap. With the ship's secondary computer core already damaged and off-line (thanks to repeated Kazon attacks), a Kazon operative named Tierna was able to detonate organic explosives in his bloodstream while on board Voyager, disabling the ship's power systems and the primary computer core. Janeway was unable to activate the auto-destruct sequence and the ship was boarded by Kazon troops. The crew was put off the ship on Hanon IV. Lieutenant Thomas Paris, with assistance from Talaxian forces, was able to retake the ship as the Doctor and Lon Suder (who was killed during the liberation of Voyager) sabotaged the ships' weapons systems, causing an overload. Seska was killed in the resulting explosion. Culluh escaped with the baby, which was his son after all (as confirmed by the Doctor's analysis of the child's DNA; both crews did suffer from a lack of information about Cardassian/Kazon offspring, after all). ( ) At some point in the early days of Voyager's time in the Delta Quadrant, Tuvok developed a holodeck training simulation called "Insurrection Alpha", which challenged the participant to deal with a Maquis mutiny. However, when he realized that the two crews were getting along better than he had initially suspected, he deleted the program and never told anyone about it, fearing that it would trigger the mutiny he wanted to avoid. Seska discovered it and reprogrammed it to act as a trap. In 2373, Tuvok and Tom Paris attempted to alter the program, triggering Seska's changes. With the holodeck safety protocols disengaged, the program quickly became extremely hazardous. However, Captain Janeway was able to reprogram portions of the simulation and allow Tuvok and Paris to escape. ( ) In 2377, the timeframe aboard Voyager became shattered. The effect of this was to cause different areas of the ship to exist at different times throughout the ship's past, present and future. Isolated from the effects of this, the 2377 Chakotay was able to pass through the ship unaffected. One of the areas he visited was Engineering during the Kazon-Nistrim takeover of the ship in 2372, where he encountered Seska and a number of Kazon. Seska learned that their takeover would only be temporary, and tried to use this situation to her advantage. She attempted to stop Chakotay's efforts to restore the timeframe to normal, trying to reset history to her point in time, but was prevented from doing so by Voyager crew members from various points in history and Chakotay's future (Such as a still-Borg Seven of Nine, a Maquis B'Elanna Torres, and future versions of Icheb and Naomi Wildman), and the timeline was successfully restored. ( ) Appendices Appearances * ** (Season One) ** ** ** ** ** (Season Two) ** ** ** ** ** (Season Three) ** ** (Season Seven) Background Information *Seska was played by actress Martha Hackett. *In 2002, Seska placed nineteenth in TV Zone's list of the top twenty science fiction television villains. The Borg Queen was second, Dukat was fourth, Weyoun was eighth and Q was eleventh. *Seska's true intentions in helping the Kazon-Nistrim were never explicitly revealed. Though she initially claimed that by helping them, she would be helping Voyager gain a protective ally in , the Nistrim were shown to be a comparatively weak sect with many enemies in . They would have been, in reality, quite limited in their abilities to help Voyager. Since this information was known to Neelix, it's mysterious why she would have nevertheless pursued contact with them. Moreover both "Maneuvers" and make it clear that Culluh desired Voyager as a means of solidifying his own power base in the Kazon Collective. How Seska was planning to use these facts to help Voyager — or even just herself — to return to the Alpha Quadrant remains unclear. A clue may lay in the fact that she was, in reality, a Cardassian spy. It may be reasonable to speculate that she was simply trying to help the Cardassian Union to eventually gain a foothold in the Delta Quadrant. Seska Seska Seska Seska de:Seska es:Seska fr:Seska